IRON BOSS CAN’T WAIT FOR XMAS...
So he delivers the sack 12 weeks early
CHRISTMAS came early for Jamie Day – but his P45 was the gift Braintree chairman Lee Harding handed to him this week despite a vote of confidence a fortnight before. The Iron chief told The NLP last month that the National League club would assess the managerial situation if they remained in trouble over the festive period. Braintree’s home defeat to Forest Green last weekend saw Santa sleigh his manager – Day, who replaced Danny Cowley in the summer, became the league fifth’s boss to get the chop. Harding didn’t hang around and appointed former Luton Town assistant Hakan Hayrettin on Wednesday afternoon. The former Grays and Thurrock boss, 46, was the man overlooked for the job in the summer and the Cressing Road chairman is big enough to accept he got it wrong. He said: “It was between Hak and Jamie for the job originally. It was a very close call in the end, 49 per cent to 51 is probably the best way of describing it. “I think what it came down to was the fact that Jamie’s Welling side always used to beat us! He worked really hard, is a great guy and he has a good future in the game, but we weren’t making the progress we needed to, in fact we were probably going backwards if anything.
“We don’t pretend to be perfect. We set a target of assessing things at Christmas on the basis that you are seeing progress. But it’s a resultsdriven business. We had let in eight goals in our last three home games and we felt a change was required.”
Progress
Although on the face of it a harsh decision considering the recent backing given, Braintree finished last season in third place.
A repeat was never expected, but standards had dropped. Now under Hayrettin the brief is very straight forward.
“We need to start playing as a team again,” the chairman said. “Winning together and losing together, but most of all, fighting for each other. We have very good players, but we aren’t a good team.
“Haks ducks and dives and he knows the local scene like nobody else. There’s not a person in football around here who he doesn’t know.” In their sixth season in NonLeague’s top tier, the printing merchant says Braintree’s obituary shouldn’t start to be written. “It’s been a challenging start, but we’re made of stern stuff,” he adds. “We’re not planning on going anywhere and hopefully this change can inspire us to climb the table.”